IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/wbadwp/50295.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1899:Agricultural Trade Policies, Alcohol Taxes and War

Author

Listed:
  • Nye, John V.C.

Abstract

Britain – contrary to received wisdom – was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century War with Louis XIV from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France for a quarter of a century. The creation of powerful protected interests both at home and abroad (notably in the form of British merchants, and investors in Portuguese wine) led to the imposition of prohibitively high tariffs on French imports -- notably on wine and spirits -- when trade with France resumed in 1714. Protection of domestic interests from import competition allowed the state to raise domestic excises which provided increased government revenues despite almost no increases in the taxes on land and income in Britain. The state ensured compliance not simply through the threat of lower tariffs on foreign substitutes but also through the encouragement of a trend towards monopoly production in brewing and restricted retail sales of beer (which began around 1700 and continued throughout the eighteenth century). This history is analyzed in terms of its effects on British fiscal and commercial policy from the early 1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. The result is a fuller, albeit revisionist account of the rise of the modern state that calls into question a variety of theses in economics and political science that draw on the naive view of a liberal Britain unilaterally moving to free trade in the nineteenth century.

Suggested Citation

  • Nye, John V.C., 2009. "Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1899:Agricultural Trade Policies, Alcohol Taxes and War," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper Series 50295, World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50295
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.50295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/50295/files/Political%20Economy%20of%20Anglo-French%20Trade_%20Agricultural%20Distortions%20Working%20Paper%2079_%20May%202009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.50295?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. Anderson & J. Peter Neary, 1996. "A New Approach to Evaluating Trade Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(1), pages 107-125.
    2. Irwin, Douglas A., 1993. "Free Trade and Protection in Nineteenth-Century Britain and France Revisited: A Comment on Nye," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(01), pages 146-152, March.
    3. Sami Dakhlia & John Nye, 2004. "Tax Britannica: Nineteenth Century Tariffs and British National Income," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 309-333, February.
    4. Nye, John Vincent, 1993. "Reply to Irwin on Free Trade," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(01), pages 153-158, March.
    5. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    6. Nye, John Vincent, 1991. "The Myth of Free-Trade Britain and Fortress France: Tariffs and Trade in the Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 23-46, March.
    7. Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, 2006. "From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262195437, December.
    8. Béatrice Dedinger, 2006. "From virtual free-trade to virtual protectionism. Did protectionism have any part in Germany's rise to commercial power : 1850-1913," Post-Print hal-03611639, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:cte:whrepe:wh017204 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/670 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/670 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Flandreau, Marc & Accominotti, Olivier, 2005. "Does Bilateralism Promote Trade? Nineteenth Century Liberalization Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 5423, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Tena-Junguito, Antonio & Lampe, Markus & Fernandes, Felipe Tâmega, 2012. "How Much Trade Liberalization Was There in the World Before and After Cobden-Chevalier?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 708-740, August.
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/670 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/670 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. O'Rourke, Kevin H., 1997. "Measuring protection: a cautionary tale," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 169-183, June.
    9. Stéphane BECUWE & Bertrand BLANCHETON, 2011. "Tariff growth paradox between 1850 and 1913: a critical survey (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2011-24, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    10. Stéphane Becuwe & Bertrand Blancheton, 2014. "The dispersion of customs tariffs in France between 1850 and 1913: Discrimination in trade policy," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 30, pages 163-183, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Lampe, Markus, 2009. "Effects of Bilateralism and the MFN Clause on International Trade: Evidence for the Cobden-Chevalier Network, 1860-1875," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1012-1040, December.
    12. O'Rourke, Kevin H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1997. "Around the European periphery 1870–1913: Globalization, schooling and growth," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 153-190, August.
    13. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2013. "Africa's Growth Prospects in a European mirror: a Historical Perspective," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 172, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6flqrv4et09btppk9s58qgp979 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Harwick, Cameron, 2018. "Money and its institutional substitutes: the role of exchange institutions in human cooperation," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 689-714, August.
    16. Douglas A. Irwin & Maksym G. Chepeliev, 2020. "The Economic Consequences of Sir Robert Peel: A Quantitative Assessment of the Repeal of the Corn Laws," NBER Working Papers 28142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Sibylle H. Lehmann & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2008. "The Structure of Protection and Growth in the Late 19th Century," NBER Working Papers 14493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Sami Dakhlia & John Nye, 2004. "Tax Britannica: Nineteenth Century Tariffs and British National Income," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 309-333, February.
    19. Ogilvie, Sheilagh & Carus, A.W., 2014. "Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 403-513, Elsevier.
    20. Cagé, Julia & Gadenne, Lucie, 2018. "Tax revenues and the fiscal cost of trade liberalization, 1792–2006," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-24.
    21. Brian D. Varian, 2018. "Anglo†American trade costs during the first era of globalization: the contribution of a bilateral tariff series," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 190-212, February.
    22. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6flqrv4et09btppk9s58qgp979 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Edward J. Green & Richard M. Todd, 2001. "Thoughts on the Fed's role in the payment system," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 25(Win), pages 12-27.
    24. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    25. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    26. Javier San Julian Arrupe (Universitat de Barcelona), 2012. "Economic ideas and tax policy: The introduction of progressivity in tax systems in Western Europe. The cases of France and Spain," Working Papers in Economics 285, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    27. Jaume Ventura & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Debt into growth: How sovereign debt accelerated the first Industrial Revolution," Economics Working Papers 1483, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade;

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N53 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50295. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wlrdbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.
    pFad - Phonifier reborn

    Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

    Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


    Alternative Proxies:

    Alternative Proxy

    pFad Proxy

    pFad v3 Proxy

    pFad v4 Proxy